Significant Other: the sci-fi movie’s ending, explained

This 2022 movie starts with a meteor falling from the sky and machine-like claw grabbing a deer. Let’s see what it’s all about.

Trek to the Red Ridge Trail

Harry and Ruth have been together for 6 years and it’s their first trek together. On their way, they stop for snacks and a young boy working there comes up to collect trash and with a scared look asks them, “did you see the red star come down?” Strange.

Once there, Harry encourages Ruth and says she’ll definitely like it. He’s done it multiple times. They talk while trekking, rest and Ruth senses something behind. At night, she gets scared by something moving quickly.

The awkwardness

At a beautiful cliff, Harry proposes to Ruth but she hyperventilates & rejects. Next day, Harry’s left a note that he’s gone for a walk. Ruth contemplates calling a Dr. Ledlow and strolls for a signal. She sees the corpse of a deer- covered in black with the head sliced.

She later tells Harry that she loves him but just doesn’t trust marriage. Next morning, Ruth goes to bathroom while Harry cooks. She finds a cave with something blue shining in there. A puddle of it. She turns at hearing something, and screams as the scene changes.

What’s happened to Ruth?

Harry searches her. He finds her standing and they go back. There’s something off about her. They continue the trek. One day, she tells Harry that she was wrong and wants to give them a shot. She asks him to propose again and takes him back to the cliff.

He proposes, she agrees, and they kiss. Then suddenly she says, “I love you, Harry” before pushing him down the cliff. Wait, what? Yes! She runs and runs and eventually faints near a tree.

Another couple finds her and terror ensues

Ray and Vivian take Ruth with them but she claims to remember nothing. At their camp, Viv tries but in vain. While Viv tells her husband there’s something weird, Ruth gets hold of a knife and a voice comes from the woods.

Ruth cries out, “It’s him!” and in flashlight, the guy is no other than Harry. Ruth runs and Viv runs after her. On being stopped, ‘Harry’ cuts Ray with a long fingernail blade and after thanking him for finding her. He comes after Ruth and kills Vivian.

Is Harry alive, then?

Harry asks Ruth that how did she knew he was Harry’s replica. In the cave Ruth went, she said she saw Harry cocooned and cut in half. She took her anxiety pills to calm down and planned to kill the replica. The replica is apparently a scout who travels to planets and reports back.

He’s trying to kill Ruth but he can’t. He surprisingly proclaims he loves her but Ruth runs away. He chases her and says he loves her because he’s an exact biological replica of Harry, he feels everything he felt and that it’s incredible.

Then he takes her to his spaceship by the beach. Ruth sees sharks in the water while he talks about taking her with him because Earth will soon be overtaken by his species. Ruth agrees. But she takes his knife, thrusts it in his heart, and runs to the sea. He follows her, still bleeding and soon enough, a shark comes for him.

Encountering her own fears and the end

Ruth ran away but the replica regenerated itself. Ruth runs out of her pills and the replica finds her and takes her to the cave. It sucking out from her cocooned to the wall. As it transforms into Ruth, it also feels her pain and sorrows.

The replica hyperventilates as Ruth tells it that the pain will never go away and breaks free from the shell. She thrashes its head with a stone and runs. Ruth drives out the trail but the radio voices the replica, warning Ruth that she can’t run away from her and what’s coming. The last scene shows multiple red meteors coming from the sky, signifying an imminent alien attack.

Director Robert Olsen talks about multiple themes in his interview with Digital Trends, saying, “In the beginning, you think this is going to be this austere, A24-like, heady sci-fi thing, and then something happens, and all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘Oh, wait, there’s a little bit more going on with this thing!”